Intelligent Dilbertism

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Scott Adams

Thank you for suggesting I read the work of people who earn a living by supporting a particular viewpoint. You have low standards of credibility. -- Scott

What curious reasoning! His blog talks about him flying here and there. Those planes were designed and built by people who earn their livings by "supporting the viewpoint" that there are aerodynamic theories and principles that can explain how planes fly. Somehow, I rather doubt he'd volunteer to fly aboard a plane designed by some random guy plucked off the street.

Cheers,

Michael

[Crumb]

If someone has a morbid curiosity and wants to read his book, it is availible online now as a pdf: http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/

[Ensign Steve]

D'oh! I came in this thread to post a link to the other thread I started about it, but I see Crumb has beaten me to it.

[Crumb]

[The Lone Ranger]

It's difficult to be certain, but I think that one of Scott Adams' points is that he doesn't so much have a problem with evolution -- about which he is confessedly ignorant -- but with the attitude of PZ and other evolution defenders. I can understand why the supposed condescention or arrogance of "darwinists" would be off-putting, even though I certainly don't agree that the "bad attitudes" of "evolutionists" mean that the views of IDers or other creationists are therefore any more deserving of respect.


I'm somewhat of two minds on the subject.

On the one hand, it's easy to see why so many "evolutionists" get sick and tired of dealing with creationist know-nothings and develop a "bad attitude." A lot of creationists/IDers are simply ill-informed, but are willing to listen to the evidence and can understand that they've been poorly educated on the matter. Those people, of course, are easy to deal with. On the other hand, there are those who are aggressively ignorant, and who are either unwilling or unable to see things rationally. Perhaps it's because they've been drilled from birth to believe that all "evilutionists" are a pack of Satan-loving, God-hating liars. (I know some of those people.) Some are simply incapable of accepting that their cherished beliefs could be wrong (that the Earth was created as is only a few thousand years ago, for instance), and so view anyone who challenges those beliefs as automatically wrong -- the only question for them, then, is whether such claims are the result of delusion, stupidity, or evil.

Since the aggressively ignorant tend to get a rather disproportionate amount of press, and because some of them are motivated to actually seek out "darwinists" to harass (a friend of mine teaches at a college in South Carolina, and the local Baptist church actually recruits college-age students and sends them to biology and geology classes for the express purpose of disrupting the classes), it's understandable why a lot of people become more than a little sick of dealing with them, and develop an unfortunately short-tempered attitude toward creationists of all stripes.



That's unfortunate, because then you get people like Mr. Adams who say something along the lines of, "Those darwinists were rude and arrogant to me, so I'm not going to listen to them."

They do have a point. "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," and all that. Unfortunately, there are those rather persistent creationists who take politeness as a licence to harass. So, again, it's not difficult to see why so many biologists decide that it's a waste of time to try to educate the "ignorant masses" and withdraw to their (relatively) safe and conflict-free labs, offices, and classrooms.



But it works both ways. Adams seems to be arguing that he doesn't have to pay attention to people like PZ because they have bad attitudes -- and that this makes them less than credible, somehow. But that's just intellectual laziness -- the evidence to support evolutionary theory is readily available, and if one only asks politely, most biologists would be pleased to explain the basics of the theory, to provide evidence, and to provide some suggested readings. So suggesting that "both sides are equally plausible" because the biologists were perhaps a bit short with him is not only intellectually lazy on Mr. Adams' part, but perhaps a bit dishonest.

Dishonest because, logically, the credibility of the argument doesn't depend at all on whether the person making it does so politely or not. If one truly and honestly wants to understand the "debate" about evolution and creationism in its various forms -- including the fact that the so-called "debate" has everything to do with politics and religion, and nothing to do with science -- one must must, at a minimum, make an honest attempt to listen to what the relevant experts have to say.


Cheers,

Michael

[erimir]

I made a post describing quite clearly how he conflated the terms credibility and bias - which indeed he did, he states that a financial conflict of interest means you're not credible, when it actually means that you may be biased (ignoring that totally unbiased sources basically don't exist) which is not the same thing as not being credible.

And he claims that while he attacks the credibility of scientists, he ISN'T calling them liars, or something close to it.

And of course, furthermore, bias (which in this case I think he is blowing way out of proportion) does not mean that you have to throw the whole thing out. You can and very often do read biased information, filter out the bias and get much useful information from it. And it most certainly doesn't mean that Adams is excused from even giving Dawkins and Gould's books a fair shake. He refuses to read them, it would seem, because they are biased and he is incapable of evaluating the arguments if they're even slightly biased.

Of course, then there's the hilarity that he makes a claim that all the governments in the world believed that Saddam had WMDs, and cites as his sources, the very credible Colin Powell and John McCain, who apparently by his view of credibility, must not have any financial or political motivations that could be a conflict of interest. Yes, Steven J Gould is not credible on evolutionary biology because he has a financial interest in selling his book on evolution, but Colin Powell who was given the task of convincing the UN that Saddam had WMDs is a credible source of information on who believed Saddam had WMDs.

It's obvious that this definition of credibility he has been spouting is one that he only applies to scientists, and most likely only ones who talk about evolution, abiogenesis and the Big Bang, rather than scientists in general.

*random nerdiness* I took evolution, molecular & cellular biology, genetics and ecology (all as separate semester long courses) at my high school, and while I was there, Niles Eldredge visited my school to speak at an assembly about evolution. I don't remember the specifics about who was supposed to attend - I think it was mandatory for me, because of one of the courses I was in.

[The Lone Ranger]

Yes, he most-definitely conflates "credibility" and "bias." His unwillingness to grant credibility to some "experts" while happily granting it to others seems a bit hypocritical. It rather sounds like he's too lazy to read up on the issue, so excuses himself by claiming that the experts are lacking in credibility.

*random nerdiness* I took evolution, molecular & cellular biology, genetics and ecology (all as separate semester long courses) at my high school, and while I was there, Niles Eldredge visited my school to speak at an assembly

Cool. I've read some of his books. He spoke on NPR's "Science Friday" today.


Cheers,

Michael

[Clutch Munny]

erimir's said it well. Adams might as well note that he's subject to perceptual illusions from time to time, and conclude that he must ignore his senses as guides to the world around him.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Scott Adams

Thank you for suggesting I read the work of people who earn a living by supporting a particular viewpoint. You have low standards of credibility. -- Scott

Not only is that a remarkable line reasoning, it's one that Adams himself has stomped on.

When media critic Norman Solomon wrote a critique of Adams's work (or its effect on corporate culture) called The Trouble With Dilbert, Adams published an extended reply at the close of his book The Joy of Work. Adams complained about Solomon's raising the fact that Adams has become rich by depicting workers as inefficient.

Originally Posted by Scott Adams

The most damning evidence was that many large companies pay for Dilbert-related activities... Apparently this money trail set me apart from all the other published cartoonists who -- and this is not widely known -- get all their compensation by breaking into parking meters.

Advice to Norman: Many newspapers, magazines, and book publishers are large corporations. Be sure to avoid taking their money as you pursue your writing career. Otherwise you will lose your credibility (pp. 254-5).

The line of reasoning that seems so obviously worthy of disgusted sarcasm when directed at Adams himself suddenly seems entirely natural when Adams needs to shore up his ill-informed outburst about evolutionary science and the ID movement.

[seebs]

Doesn't Adams still insist that the "everything's expanding rilly fast" theory of gravity works better than curved space, despite its total failure to work on systems where all the objects aren't on a straight line or comparably dense?

[-FX-]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

This could just as easily go in the Politics forum, but anyway...

In his blog entry Intelligent Design, Part One, Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) asserts that people on both sides of the ID/evolution debate have good and bad arguments for their position, but that neither side understands or fairly characterizes the other - leading to a dearth of clear and reasonable information for the layman to judge the merits of either view.

Not surprisingly, biologist and vocal pundit PZ Myers took Adams to task for using his bully pulpit to muddy the already murky water of the issue by (albeit probably inadvertently) regurgitating creationist propaganda in the guise of argumentation.

Somewhat surprisingly (to me, anyway), Adams struck back in a blog entry all about PZ. Basically his whole argument amounts to the claim that despite being a highly intelligent and educated biologist, PZ is a non-credible source of information about evolution because he allegedly mischaracterized Adams' comments in his blog entry and attacked strawman arguments.

Here's an interesting exchange Adams had with one of the people who commented on his blog entry:

I'm not at all passionate about the subject of creationism and/or intelligent design, but the politics of this whole issue fascinate me. Both PZ and Adams have received hundreds of comments on their blog entries (even on PZ's response to Adams' entry about him), and flames are flying all around. Frankly I've been thoroughly unimpressed by Adams' reasoning and responses like the one I quoted above are downright scary (if professionals in the field are assumed to have no credibility, does that mean only laypeople are credible sources of information in a given field?), but it's good reading anyway.

Making this easy to find later.

This thread is more than 6314 days old.

I don't give a fuck. Just because something is old does not mean it is of no value. In fact, often the opposite is true.

[steve_bank]

Intelligent Design was crafted as a back door for creationism into public school science classes. In court cases it was ruled as such. Designer being a code word for god.

The Discovery Institute has a slick science looking site with books and papers on ID for sale, by people with science degrees. There is a money aspect to it on both sides of the issue.

Back in the 90s a creationist Washington legislator floated a bill requiring all public school science texts to have disclaimers stating there are alternate examinations to science. I exchanged emails with the author and the chair of the committee who assured me it would not get out of committee.

It is more than just politics it s about keeping religion out of public education.

As to intelligent determinism it is a contradiction of terms. Intelligence implies agency, Which in ID is god.

For the mystically inclined it might be a spirit or guiding force to the universe.

[-FX-]

Originally Posted by steve_bank

It is more than just politics it s about keeping religion out of public education.

As to intelligent determinism it is a contradiction of terms. Intelligence implies agency, Which in ID is god.

For the mystically inclined it might be a spirit or guiding force to the universe.

If I was involved in this shit, I would have argued against it by pointing out the obvious.

The goddamn design is anything but intelligent.

Anyone who has to deal with the fucked up "design", be it your own body, like getting hit in the ballsack, a pestilence, strokes, cancer, fucking comets hitting the planet, earthquakes, tidal waves, burning alive, stingrays, fire ants or a hundred other just completely fucked up "designs", you already know there is no "grand intelligence" behind any of this shit.

It's pure "if it survives it breeds" going on out there. And chaotic disaster is more likely than any planning or design.

If anyone actually believes there is some "god" who designed everything, at some point they have to realize it would be a satanic/sadistic motherfucker of a god, who was obviously drunk and pissed off at times.

Also at some point, one would have to agree with J.B.S. Haldane, that this "creator" must have an “inordinate fondness for beetles.”

[-FX-]

And of course, if I was stupid enough to actually get into it with creationist (or intelligent designists, whatever), they would counter with "Oh it was all perfect until man fucked it up by sinning", or "violating Gods laws", or "going against the designer", at which point I would give them a swift kick in the nuts, and walk away laughing.

Because their entire argument was brought down by a simple design flaw.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by -FX-

Also at some point, one would have to agree with J.B.S. Haldane, that this "creator" must have an “inordinate fondness for beetles.”

Haldane had some of the best quotes. I’m quite partial to “I would lay down my life for 2 brothers or 8 cousins.”

[-FX-]

He was, or rather still is, a fount of wisdom

I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:

(i) this is worthless nonsense;
(ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
(iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
(iv) I always said so.